The "kingdoms" were certainly many more than eight throughout the island. At a later day De Barros enumerates 29 on the coast alone. Crawford reckons 15 different nations and languages on Sumatra and its dependent isles, of which 11 belong to the great island itself.

(Hist. of Ind. Arch. III. 482; Valentyn, V. (Sumatra), p. 5; Desc. Dict. p. 7, 417; Gildemeister, p. 193; Crawf. Malay Dict. 119; J. Ind. Arch. V. 313.)

NOTE 3.—The kingdom of PARLAK is mentioned in the Shijarat Malayu or Malay Chronicle, and also in a Malay History of the Kings of Pasei, of which an abstract is given by Dulaurier, in connection with the other states of which we shall speak presently. It is also mentioned (Barlak), as a city of the Archipelago, by Rashiduddin. Of its extent we have no knowledge, but the position (probably of its northern extremity) is preserved in the native name, Tanjong (i.e. Cape) Parlak of the N.E. horn of Sumatra, called by European seamen "Diamond Point," whilst the river and town of Perla, about 32 miles south of that point, indicate, I have little doubt, the site of the old capital.[1] Indeed in Malombra's Ptolemy (Venice, 1574), I find the next city of Sumatra beyond Pacen marked as Pulaca.

The form Ferlec shows that Polo got it from the Arabs, who having no p often replace that letter by f. It is notable that the Malay alphabet, which is that of the Arabic with necessary modifications, represents the sound p not by the Persian pe ([Arabic]), but by the Arabic fe ([Arabic]), with three dots instead of one ([Arabic]).

A Malay chronicle of Achin dates the accession of the first Mahomedan king of that state, the nearest point of Sumatra to India and Arabia, in the year answering to A.D. 1205, and this is the earliest conversion among the Malays on record. It is doubtful, indeed, whether there were Kings of Achin in 1205, or for centuries after (unless indeed Lambri is to be regarded as Achin), but the introduction of Islam may be confidently assigned to that age.

The notice of the Hill-people, who lived like beasts and ate human flesh, presumably attaches to the Battas or Bataks, occupying high table-lands in the interior of Sumatra. They do not now extend north beyond lat. 3 deg. The interior of Northern Sumatra seems to remain a terra incognita, and even with the coast we are far less familiar than our ancestors were 250 years ago. The Battas are remarkable among cannibal nations as having attained or retained some degree of civilisation, and as being possessed of an alphabet and documents. Their anthropophagy is now professedly practised according to precise laws, and only in prescribed cases. Thus: (i) A commoner seducing a Raja's wife must be eaten; (2) Enemies taken in battle outside their village must be eaten alive; those taken in storming a village may be spared; (3) Traitors and spies have the same doom, but may ransom themselves for 60 dollars a-head. There is nothing more horrible or extraordinary in all the stories of mediaeval travellers than the facts of this institution. (See Junghuhn, Die Battalander, II. 158.) And it is evident that human flesh is also at times kept in the houses for food. Junghuhn, who could not abide Englishmen but was a great admirer of the Battas, tells how after a perilous and hungry flight he arrived in a friendly village, and the food that was offered by his hosts was the flesh of two prisoners who had been slaughtered the day before (I. 249). Anderson was also told of one of the most powerful Batta chiefs who would eat only such food, and took care to be supplied with it (225).

The story of the Battas is that in old times their communities lived in peace and knew no such custom; but a Devil, Nanalain, came bringing strife, and introduced this man-eating, at a period which they spoke of (in 1840) as "three men's lives ago," or about 210 years previous to that date. Junghuhn, with some enlargement of the time, is disposed to accept their story of the practice being comparatively modern. This cannot be, for their hideous custom is alluded to by a long chain of early authorities. Ptolemy's anthropophagi may perhaps be referred to the smaller islands. But the Arab Relations of the 9th century speak of man-eaters in Al-Ramni, undoubtedly Sumatra. Then comes our traveller, followed by Odoric, and in the early part of the 15th century by Conti, who names the Batech cannibals. Barbosa describes them without naming them; Galvano (p. 108) speaks of them by name; as does De Barros. (Dec. III. liv. viii. cap. I.)

The practice of worshipping the first thing seen in the morning is related of a variety of nations. Pigafetta tells it of the people of Gilolo, and Varthema in his account of Java (which I fear is fiction) ascribes it to some people of that island. Richard Eden tells it of the Laplanders. (Notes on Russia, Hak. Soc. II. 224.)

NOTE 4.—Basma, as Valentyn indicated, seems to be the PASEI of the Malays, which the Arabs probably called Basam or the like, for the Portuguese wrote it PACEM. [Mr. J.T. Thomson writes (Proc.R.G.S. XX. p. 221) that of its actual position there can be no doubt, it being the Passier of modern charts.—H.C.] Pasei is mentioned in the Malay Chronicle as founded by Malik-al-Salih, the first Mussulman sovereign of Samudra, the next of Marco's kingdoms. He assigned one of these states to each of his two sons, Malik al-Dhahir and Malik al-Mansur; the former of whom was reigning at Samudra, and apparently over the whole coast, when Ibn Batuta was there (about 1346-47). There is also a Malay History of the Kings of Pasei to which reference has already been made.

Somewhat later Pasei was a great and famous city. Majapahit, Malacca, and Pasei being reckoned the three great cities of the Archipelago. The stimulus of conversion to Islam had not taken effect on those Sumatran states at the time of Polo's voyage, but it did so soon afterwards, and, low as they have now fallen, their power at one time was no delusion. Achin, which rose to be the chief of them, in 1615 could send against Portuguese Malacca an expedition of more than 500 sail, 100 of which were galleys larger than any then constructed in Europe, and carried from 600 to 800 men each.

[Dr. Schlegel writes to me that according to the Malay Dictionary of Von de Wall and Van der Tuuk, n. 414-415, Polo's Basman is the Arab pronunciation of Paseman, the modern Ophir in West Sumatra. Gunung Paseman is Mount Ophir.—H.C.]

]

NOTE 5.—The elephant seems to abound in the forest tracts throughout the whole length of Sumatra, and the species is now determined to be a distinct one (E. Sumatranus) from that of continental India and identical with that of Ceylon.[3] The Sumatran elephant in former days was caught and tamed extensively. Ibn Batuta speaks of 100 elephants in the train of Al Dhahir, the King of Sumatra Proper, and in the 17th century Beaulieu says the King of Achin had always 900. Giov. d'Empoli also mentions them at Pedir in the beginning of the 16th century; and see Pasei Chronicle quoted in J. As. ser. IV. tom. ix. pp. 258-259. This speaks of elephants as used in war by the people of Pasei, and of elephant-hunts as a royal diversion. The locus of that best of elephant stories, the elephant's revenge on the tailor, was at Achin.

As Polo's account of the rhinoceros is evidently from nature, it is notable that he should not only call it unicorn, but speak so precisely of its one horn, for the characteristic, if not the only, species on the island, is a two-horned one (Rh. Sumatranus),[4] and his mention of the buffalo-like hair applies only to this one. This species exists also on the Indo-Chinese continent and, it is believed, in Borneo. I have seen it in the Arakan forests as high as 19 deg. 20'; one was taken not long since near Chittagong; and Mr. Blyth tells me a stray one has been seen in Assam or its borders.

[Ibn Khordadhbeh says (De Goeje's Transl. p. 47) that rhinoceros is to be found in Kameroun (Assam), which borders on China. It has a horn, a cubit long, and two palms thick; when the horn is split, inside is found on the black ground the white figure of a man, a quadruped, a fish, a peacock or some other bird.—H.C.]

[John Evelyn mentions among the curiosities kept in the Treasury at St. Denis: "A faire unicorne's horn, sent by a K. of Persia, about 7 foote long." Diary, 1643, 12th Nov.—H.C.]

What the Traveller says of the animals' love of mire and mud is well illustrated by the manner in which the Semangs or Negritoes of the Malay Peninsula are said to destroy him: "This animal ... is found frequently in marshy places, with its whole body immersed in the mud, and part of the head only visible.... Upon the dry weather setting in ... the mud becomes hard and crusted, and the rhinoceros cannot effect his escape without considerable difficulty and exertion. The Semangs prepare themselves with large quantities of combustible materials, with which they quietly approach the animal, who is aroused from his reverie by an immense fire over him, which being kept well supplied by the Semangs with fresh fuel, soon completes his destruction, and renders him in a fit state to make a meal of." (J. Ind. Arch. IV. 426.)[5] There is a great difference in aspect between the one-horned species (Rh. Sondaicus and Rh. Indicus) and the two-horned. The Malays express what that difference is admirably, in calling the last Badak-Karbau, "the Buffalo-Rhinoceros," and the Sondaicus Badak-Gajah, "the Elephant-Rhinoceros."

The belief in the formidable nature of the tongue of the rhinoceros is very old and wide-spread, though I can find no foundation for it but the rough appearance of the organ. ["His tongue also is somewhat of a rarity, for, if he can get any of his antagonists down, he will lick them so clean, that he leaves neither skin nor flesh to cover his bones." (A. Hamilton, ed. 1727, II. 24. M.S. Note of Yule.) Compare what is said of the tongue of the Yak, I. p. 277.—H.C.] The Chinese have the belief, and the Jesuit Lecomte attests it from professed observation of the animal in confinement. (Chin. Repos. VII. 137; Lecomte, II. 406.) [In a Chinese work quoted by Mr. Groeneveldt (T'oung Pao, VII. No. 2, abst. p. 19) we read that "the rhinoceros has thorns on its tongue and always eats the thorns of plants and trees, but never grasses or leaves."—H.C.]

The legend to which Marco alludes, about the Unicorn allowing itself to be ensnared by a maiden (and of which Marsden has made an odd perversion in his translation, whilst indicating the true meaning in his note), is also an old and general one. It will be found, for example, in Brunetto Latini, in the Image du Monde, in the Mirabilia of Jordanus,[6] and in the verses of Tzetzes. The latter represents Monoceros as attracted not by the maiden's charms but by her perfumery. So he is inveigled and blindfolded by a stout young knave, disguised as a maiden and drenched with scent:—

"'Tis then the huntsmen hasten up, abandoning their ambush; Clean from his head they chop his horn, prized antidote to poison; And let the docked and luckless beast escape into the jungles." —V. 399, seqq.

In the cut which we give of this from a mediaeval source the horn of the unicorn is evidently the tusk of a narwhal. This confusion arose very early, as may be seen from its occurrence in Aelian, who says that the horn of the unicorn or Kartazonon (the Arab Karkaddan or Rhinoceros) was not straight but twisted ([Greek: eligmous echon tinas], Hist. An. xvi. 20). The mistake may also be traced in the illustrations to Cosmas Indicopleustes from his own drawings, and it long endured, as may be seen in Jerome Cardan's description of a unicorn's horn which he saw suspended in the church of St. Denis; as well as in a circumstance related by P. della Valle (II. 491; and Cardan, de Varietate, c. xcvii.). Indeed the supporter of the Royal arms retains the narwhal horn. To this popular error is no doubt due the reading in Pauthier's text, which makes the horn white instead of black.

]

We may quote the following quaint version of the fable from the Bestiary of Philip de Thaun, published by Mr. Wright (Popular Treatises on Science, etc. p. 81):

"Monosceros est Beste, un corne ad en la teste, Purceo ad si a nun, de buc ad facun; Par Pucele est prise; or vez en quel guise. Quant hom le volt cacer et prendre et enginner, Si vent hom al forest u sis riparis est; La met une Pucele hors de sein sa mamele, Et par odurement Monosceros la sent; Dunc vent a la Pucele, et si baiset la mamele, En sein devant se dort, issi vent a sa mort Li hom suivent atant ki l'ocit en dormant U trestout vif le prent, si fais puis sun talent. Grant chose signifie."....

And so goes on to moralise the fable.

NOTE 6.—In the J. Indian Archip. V. 285, there is mention of the Falco Malaiensis, black, with a double white-and-brown spotted tail, said to belong to the ospreys, "but does not disdain to take birds and other game."

[1] See Anderson's Missing to East Coast of Sumatra. pp. 229, 233 and map. The Ferlec of Polo was identified by Valentyn. (Sumatra, in vol. v. p. 21.) Marsden remarks that a terminal k is in Sumatra always softened or omitted in pronunciation. (H. of Sum. 1st. ed. p. 163.) Thus we have Perlak, and Perla, as we have Battak and Batta.

[2] Since this engraving was made a fourth species has been established, Rhin lasyotis, found near Chittagong.

[3] The elephant of India has 6 true ribs and 13 false ribs, that of Sumatra and Ceylon has 6 true and 14 false.

[4] Marsden, however, does say that a one-horned species (Rh. sondaicus?) is also found on Sumatra (3rd ed. of his H. of Sumatra, p. 116).

[5] An American writer professes to have discovered in Missouri the fossil remains of a bogged mastodon, which had been killed precisely in this way by human contemporaries. (See Lubbock, Preh. Times, ad ed. 279.)

[6] Tresor, p. 253; N. and E., V. 263; Jordanus, p. 43.

[7] Another mediaeval illustration of the subject is given in Les Arts au Moyen Age, p. 499, from the binding of a book. It is allegorical, and the Maiden is there the Virgin Mary.



CHAPTER X.

THE KINGDOMS OF SAMARA AND DAGROIAN.

So you must know that when you leave the kingdom of Basma you come to another kingdom called Samara, on the same Island.[NOTE 1] And in that kingdom Messer Marco Polo was detained five months by the weather, which would not allow of his going on. And I tell you that here again neither the Pole-star nor the stars of the Maestro[NOTE 2] were to be seen, much or little. The people here are wild Idolaters; they have a king who is great and rich; but they also call themselves subjects of the Great Kaan. When Messer Mark was detained on this Island five months by contrary winds, [he landed with about 2000 men in his company; they dug large ditches on the landward side to encompass the party, resting at either end on the sea-haven, and within these ditches they made bulwarks or stockades of timber] for fear of those brutes of man-eaters; [for there is great store of wood there; and the Islanders having confidence in the party supplied them with victuals and other things needful.] There is abundance of fish to be had, the best in the world. The people have no wheat, but live on rice. Nor have they any wine except such as I shall now describe.

You must know that they derive it from a certain kind of tree that they have. When they want wine they cut a branch of this, and attach a great pot to the stem of the tree at the place where the branch was cut; in a day and a night they will find the pot filled. This wine is excellent drink, and is got both white and red. [It is of such surpassing virtue that it cures dropsy and tisick and spleen.] The trees resemble small date-palms; ... and when cutting a branch no longer gives a flow of wine, they water the root of the tree, and before long the branches again begin to give out wine as before.[NOTE 3] They have also great quantities of Indian nuts [as big as a man's head], which are good to eat when fresh; [being sweet and savoury, and white as milk. The inside of the meat of the nut is filled with a liquor like clear fresh water, but better to the taste, and more delicate than wine or any other drink that ever existed.]

Now that we have done telling you about this kingdom, let us quit it, and we will tell you of Dagroian.

When you leave the kingdom of Samara you come to another which is called DAGROIAN. It is an independent kingdom, and has a language of its own. The people are very wild, but they call themselves the subjects of the Great Kaan. I will tell you a wicked custom of theirs.[NOTE 4]

When one of them is ill they send for their sorcerers, and put the question to them, whether the sick man shall recover of his sickness or no. If they say that he will recover, then they let him alone till he gets better. But if the sorcerers foretell that the sick man is to die, the friends send for certain judges of theirs to put to death him who has thus been condemned by the sorcerers to die. These men come, and lay so many clothes upon the sick man's mouth that they suffocate him. And when he is dead they have him cooked, and gather together all the dead man's kin, and eat him. And I assure you they do suck the very bones till not a particle of marrow remains in them; for they say that if any nourishment remained in the bones this would breed worms, and then the worms would die for want of food, and the death of those worms would be laid to the charge of the deceased man's soul. And so they eat him up stump and rump. And when they have thus eaten him they collect his bones and put them in fine chests, and carry them away, and place them in caverns among the mountains where no beast nor other creature can get at them. And you must know also that if they take prisoner a man of another country, and he cannot pay a ransom in coin, they kill him and eat him straightway. It is a very evil custom and a parlous.[NOTE 5]

Now that I have told you about this kingdom let us leave it, and I will tell you of Lambri.

NOTE 1.—I have little doubt that in Marco's dictation the name was really Samatra, and it is possible that we have a trace of this in the Samarcha (for Samartha) of the Crusca MS.

The Shijarat Malayu has a legend, with a fictitious etymology, of the foundation of the city and kingdom of Samudra, or SUMATRA, by Marah Silu, a fisherman near Pasangan, who had acquired great wealth, as wealth is got in fairy tales. The name is probably the Sanskrit Samudra, "the sea." Possibly it may have been imitated from Dwara Samudra, at that time a great state and city of Southern India. [We read in the Malay Annals, Salalat al Salatin, translated by Mr. J.T. Thomson (Proc.R.G.S. XX. p. 216): "Mara Silu ascended the eminence, when he saw an ant as big as a cat; so he caught it, and ate it, and on the place he erected his residence, which he named Samandara, which means Big Ant (Semut besar in Malay)."—H.C.] Mara Silu having become King of Samudra was converted to Islam, and took the name of Malik-al-Salih. He married the daughter of the King of Parlak, by whom he had two sons; and to have a principality for each he founded the city and kingdom of Pasei. Thus we have Marco's three first kingdoms, Ferlec, Basma, and Samara, connected together in a satisfactory manner in the Malayan story. It goes on to relate the history of the two sons Al-Dhahir and Al-Mansur. Another version is given in the history of Pasei already alluded to, with such differences as might be expected when the oral traditions of several centuries came to be written down.

Ibn Batuta, about 1346, on his way to China, spent fifteen days at the court of Samudra, which he calls Samathrah or Samuthrah. The king whom he found there reigning was the Sultan Al-Malik Al-Dhahir, a most zealous Mussulman, surrounded by doctors of theology, and greatly addicted to religious discussions, as well as a great warrior and a powerful prince. The city was 4 miles from its port, which the traveller calls Sarha; he describes the capital as a large and fine town, surrounded with an enceinte and bastions of timber. The court displayed all the state of Mahomedan royalty, and the Sultan's dominions extended for many days along the coast. In accordance with Ibn Batuta's picture, the Malay Chronicle represents the court of Pasei (which we have seen to be intimately connected with Samudra) as a great focus of theological studies about this time.

There can be little doubt that Ibn Batuta's Malik Al-Dhahir is the prince of the Malay Chronicle the son of the first Mahomedan king. We find in 1292 that Marco says nothing of Mahomedanism; the people are still wild idolaters; but the king is already a rich and powerful prince. This may have been Malik Al-Salih before his conversion; but it may be doubted if the Malay story be correct in representing him as the founder of the city. Nor is this apparently so represented in the Book of the Kings of Pasei.

Before Ibn Batuta's time, Sumatra or Samudra appears in the travels of Fr. Odoric. After speaking of Lamori (to which we shall come presently), he says: "In the same island, towards the south, is another kingdom, by name SUMOLTRA, in which is a singular generation of people, for they brand themselves on the face with a hot iron in some twelve places," etc. This looks as if the conversion to Islam was still (circa 1323) very incomplete. Rashiduddin also speaks of Sumutra as lying beyond Lamuri. (Elliot, I. p. 70.)

The power attained by the dynasty of Malik Al-Salih, and the number of Mahomedans attracted to his court, probably led in the course of the 14th century to the extension of the name of Sumatra to the whole island. For when visited early in the next century by Nicolo Conti, we are told that he "went to a fine city of the island of Taprobana, which island is called by the natives Shamuthera." Strange to say, he speaks of the natives as all idolaters. Fra Mauro, who got much from Conti, gives us Isola Siamotra over Taprobana; and it shows at once his own judgment and want of confidence in it, when he notes elsewhere that "Ptolemy, professing to describe Taprobana, has really only described Saylan."

We have no means of settling the exact position of the city of Sumatra, though possibly an enquiry among the natives of that coast might still determine the point. Marsden and Logan indicate Samarlanga, but I should look for it nearer Pasei. As pointed out by Mr. Braddell in the J. Ind. Arch., Malay tradition represents the site of Pasei as selected on a hunting expedition from Samudra, which seems to imply tolerable proximity. And at the marriage of the Princess of Parlak to Malik Al-Salih, we are told that the latter went to receive her on landing at Jambu Ayer (near Diamond Point), and thence conducted her to the city of Samudra. I should seek Samudra near the head of the estuary-like Gulf of Pasei, called in the charts Telo (or Talak) Samawe; a place very likely to have been sought as a shelter to the Great Kaan's fleet during the south-west monsoon. Fine timber, of great size, grows close to the shore of this bay,[1] and would furnish material for Marco's stockades.

When the Portuguese first reached those regions Pedir was the leading state upon the coast, and certainly no state called Sumatra continued to exist. Whether the city continued to exist even in decay is not easy to discern. The Ain-i-Akbari says that the best civet is that which is brought from the seaport town of Sumatra, in the territory of Achin, and is called Sumatra Zabad; but this may have been based on old information. Valentyn seems to recognise the existence of a place of note called Samadra or Samotdara, though it is not entered on his map. A famous mystic theologian who flourished under the great King of Achin, Iskandar Muda, and died in 1630, bore the name of Shamsuddin Shamatrani, which seems to point to the city of Sumatra as his birth place.[2] The most distinct mention that I know of the city so called, in the Portuguese period, occurs in the soi-disant "Voyage which Juan Serano made when he fled from Malacca," in 1512, published by Lord Stanley of Alderley, at the end of his translation of Barbosa. This man speaks of the "island of Samatra" as named from "a city of this northern part." And on leaving Pedir, having gone down the northern coast, he says, "I drew towards the south and south-east direction, and reached to another country and city which is called Samatra," and so on. Now this describes the position in which the city of Sumatra should have been if it existed. But all the rest of the tract is mere plunder from Varthema.[3]

There is, however, a like intimation in a curious letter respecting the Portuguese discoveries, written from Lisbon in 1515, by a German, Valentine Moravia, who was probably the same Valentyn Fernandez, the German, who published the Portuguese edition of Marco Polo at Lisbon in 1502, and who shows an extremely accurate conception of Indian geography. He says: "La maxima insula la quale e chiamata da Marcho Polo Veneto Iava Minor, et al presente si chiama Sumotra, da un emporie di dicta insula" (printed by De Gubernatis, Viagg. Ita. etc., p. 170).

Several considerations point to the probability that the states of Pasei and Sumatra had become united, and that the town of Sumatra may have been represented by the Pacem of the Portuguese.[4] I have to thank Mr. G. Phillips for the copy of a small Chinese chart showing the northern coast of the island, which he states to be from "one of about the 13th century." I much doubt the date, but the map is valuable as showing the town of Sumatra (Sumantala). This seems to be placed in the Gulf of Pasei, and very near where Pasei itself still exists. An extract of a "Chinese account of about A.D. 1413" accompanied the map. This states that the town was situated some distance up a river, so as to be reached in two tides. There was a village at the mouth of the river called Talumangkin.[5]

[Mr. E.H. Parker writes (China Review, XXIV. p. 102): "Colonel Yule's remarks about Pasei are borne out by Chinese History (Ming, 325, 20, 24), which states that in 1521 Pieh-tu-lu (Pestrello [for Perestrello ?]) having failed in China 'went for' Pa-si. Again 'from Pa-si, Malacca, to Luzon, they swept the seas, and all the other nations were afraid of them.'"—H. C]

Among the Indian states which were prevailed on to send tribute (or presents) to Kublai in 1286, we find Sumutala. The chief of this state is called in the Chinese record Tu-'han-pa-ti, which seems to be just the Malay words Tuan Pati, "Lord Ruler." No doubt this was the rising state of Sumatra, of which we have been speaking; for it will be observed that Marco says the people of that state called themselves the Kaan's subjects. Rashiduddin makes the same statement regarding the people of Java (i.e. the island of Sumatra), and even of Nicobar: "They are all subject to the Kaan." It is curious to find just the same kind of statements about the princes of the Malay Islands acknowledging themselves subjects of Charles V., in the report of the surviving commander of Magellan's ship to that emperor (printed by Baldelli-Boni, I. lxvii.). Pauthier has curious Chinese extracts containing a notable passage respecting the disappearance of Sumatra Proper from history: "In the years Wen-chi (1573-1615), the Kingdom of Sumatra divided in two, and the new state took the name of Achi (Achin). After that Sumatra was no more heard of." (Gaubil, 205; De Mailla, IX. 429; Elliot, I. 71; Pauthier, pp. 605 and 567.)

NOTE 2.—"Vos di que la Tramontaine ne part. Et encore vos di que l'estoilles dou Meistre ne aparent ne pou ne grant" (G.T.). The Tramontaine is the Pole star:—

"De nostre Pere l'Apostoille Volsisse qu'il semblast l'estoile Qui ne se muet ... Par cele estoile vont et viennent Et lor sen et lor voie tiennent Il l'apelent la tres montaigne." —La Bible Guiot de Provins in Barbazan, by Meon, II. 377.

The Meistre is explained by Pauthier to be Arcturus; but this makes Polo's error greater than it is. Brunetto Latini says: "Devers la tramontane en a il i. autre (vent) plus debonaire, qui a non Chorus. Cestui apelent li marinier MAISTRE por vij. estoiles qui sont en celui meisme leu," etc. (Li Tresors, p. 122). Magister or Magistra in mediaeval Latin, La Maistre in old French, signifies "the beam of a plough." Possibly this accounts for the application of Maistre to the Great Bear, or Plough. But on the other hand the pilot's art is called in old French maistrance. Hence this constellation may have had the name as the pilot's guide,—like our Lode-star. The name was probably given to the N.W. point under a latitude in which the Great Bear sets in that quarter. In this way many of the points of the old Arabian Rose des Vents were named from the rising or setting of certain constellations. (See Reinaud's Abulfeda, Introd. pp. cxcix.-cci.)

NOTE 3.—The tree here intended, and which gives the chief supply of toddy and sugar in the Malay Islands, is the Areng Saccharifera (from the Javanese name), called by the Malays Gomuti, and by the Portuguese Saguer. It has some resemblance to the date-palm, to which Polo compares it, but it is a much coarser and wilder-looking tree, with a general raggedness, "incompta et adspectu tristis," as Rumphius describes it. It is notable for the number of plants that find a footing in the joints of its stem. On one tree in Java I have counted thirteen species of such parasites, nearly all ferns. The tree appears in the foreground of the cut at p. 273.

Crawford thus describes its treatment in obtaining toddy: "One of the spathae, or shoots of fructification, is, on the first appearance of the fruit, beaten for three successive days with a small stick, with the view of determining the sap to the wounded part. The shoot is then cut off, a little way from the root, and the liquor which pours out is received in pots.... The Gomuti palm is fit to yield toddy at 9 or 10 years old, and continues to yield it for 2 years at the average rate of 3 quarts a day." (Hist. of Ind. Arch. I. 398.)

The words omitted in translation are unintelligible to me: "et sunt quatre raimes trois cel en." (G.T.)

["Polo's description of the wine-pots of Samara hung on the trees 'like date-palms,' agrees precisely with the Chinese account of the shu theu tsiu made from 'coir trees like cocoa-nut palms' manufactured by the Burmese. Therefore it seems more likely that Samara is Siam (still pronounced Shumuro in Japan, and Siamlo in Hakka), than Sumatra." (Parker, China Review, XIV. p. 359.) I think it useless to discuss this theory.—H.C.]

NOTE 4.—No one has been able to identify this state. Its position, however, must have been near PEDIR, and perhaps it was practically the same. Pedir was the most flourishing of those Sumatran states at the appearance of the Portuguese.

Rashiduddin names among the towns of the Archipelago Dalmian, which may perhaps be a corrupt transcript of Dagroian.

Mr. Phillips's Chinese extracts, already cited, state that west of Sumatra (proper) were two small kingdoms, the first Naku-urh, the second Liti. Naku-urh, which seems to be the Ting-'ho-'rh of Pauthier's extracts, which sent tribute to the Kaan, and may probably be Dagroian as Mr. Phillips supposes, was also called the Kingdom of Tattooed Folk.

[Mr. G. Phillips wrote since (J.R.A.S., July 1895, p. 528): "Dragoian has puzzled many commentators, but on (a) Chinese chart ... there is a country called Ta-hua-mien, which in the Amoy dialect is pronounced Dakolien, in which it is very easy to recognise the Dragoian, or Dagoyam, of Marco Polo." In his paper of The Seaports of India and Ceylon (Jour. China B.R.A.S., xx. 1885, p. 221), Mr. Phillips, referring to his Chinese Map, already said: Ta-hsiao-hua-mien, in the Amoy dialect Toa-sio-hoe (or Ko)-bin, "The Kingdom of the Greater and Lesser Tattooed Faces." The Toa-Ko-bin, the greater tattooed-face people, most probably represents the Dagroian, or Dagoyum, of Marco Polo. This country was called Na-ku-erh and Ma Huan says, "the King of Na-ku-erh is also called the King of the Tattooed Faces."—H.C.]

Tattooing is ascribed by Friar Odoric to the people of Sumoltra. (Cathay, p. 86.) Liti is evidently the Lide of De Barros, which by his list lay immediately east of Pedir. This would place Naku-urh about Samarlangka. Beyond Liti was Lanmoli (i.e. Lambri). [See G. Schlegel, Geog. Notes, XVI. Li-tai, Nakur.—H.C.]

There is, or was fifty years ago, a small port between Ayer Labu and Samarlangka, called Darian-Gade (Great Darian?). This is the nearest approach to Dagroian that I have met with. (N. Ann. des V., tom. xviii. p. 16.)

NOTE 5.—Gasparo Balbi (1579-1587) heard the like story of the Battas under Achin. True or false, the charge against them has come down to our times. The like is told by Herodotus of the Paddaei in India, of the Massagetae, and of the Issedonians; by Strabo of the Caspians and of the Derbices; by the Chinese of one of the wild tribes of Kwei-chau; and was told to Wallace of some of the Aru Island tribes near New Guinea, and to Bickmore of a tribe on the south coast of Floris, called Rakka (probably a form of Hindu Rakshasa, or ogre-goblin). Similar charges are made against sundry tribes of the New World, from Brazil to Vancouver Island. Odoric tells precisely Marco's story of a certain island called Dondin. And in "King Alisaunder," the custom is related of a people of India, called most inappropriately Orphani:—

"Another Folk woneth there beside; Orphani he hatteth wide. When her eldrynges beth elde, And ne mowen hemselven welde Hy hem sleeth, and bidelve And," etc., etc. —Weber, I. p. 206.

Benedetto Bordone, in his Isolario (1521 and 1547), makes the same charge against the Irish, but I am glad to say that this seems only copied fiom Strabo. Such stories are still rife in the East, like those of men with tails. I have myself heard the tale told, nearly as Raffles tells it of the Battas, of some of the wild tribes adjoining Arakan. (Balbi, f. 130; Raffles, Mem. p. 427; Wallace, Malay Archip. 281; Bickmore's Travels, p. III; Cathay, pp. 25, 100).

The latest and most authentic statement of the kind refers to a small tribe called Birhors, existing in the wildest parts of Chota Nagpur and Jashpur, west of Bengal, and is given by an accomplished Indian ethnologist, Colonel Dalton. "They were wretched-looking objects ... assuring me that they had themselves given up the practice, they admitted that their fathers were in the habit of disposing of their dead in the manner indicated, viz., by feasting on the bodies; but they declared that they never shortened life to provide such feast, and shrunk with horror at the idea of any bodies but those of their own blood relations being served up at them!" (J.A.S.B. XXXIV. Pt. II. 18.) The same practice has been attributed recently, but only on hearsay, to a tribe of N. Guinea called Tarungares.

The Battas now bury their dead, after keeping the body a considerable time. But the people of Nias and the Batu Islands, whom Junghuhn considers to be of common origin with the Battas, do not bury, but expose the bodies in coffins upon rocks by the sea. And the small and very peculiar people of the Paggi Islands expose their dead on bamboo platforms in the forest. It is quite probable that such customs existed in the north of Sumatra also; indeed they may still exist, for the interior seems unknown. We do hear of pagan hill-people inland from Pedir who make descents upon the coast, (Junghuhn II. 140; Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal, etc. 2nd year, No. 4; Nouv. Ann. des. V. XVIII.)

[1] Marsden, 1st ed. p. 291.

[2] Veth's Atchin, 1873, p. 37.

[3] It might be supposed that Varthema had stolen from Serano; but the book of the former was published in 1510.

[4] Castanheda speaks of Pacem as the best port of the land: "standing on the bank of a river on marshy ground about a league inland; and at the mouth of the river there are some houses of timber where a customs collector was stationed to exact duties at the anchorage from the ships which touched there." (Bk. II. ch. iii.) This agrees with Ibn Batuta's account of Sumatra, 4 miles from its port. [A village named Samudra discovered in our days near Pasei is perhaps a remnant of the kingdom of Samara. (Merveilles de l'Inde, p. 234.)—H.C.]

[5] If Mr. Phillips had given particulars about his map and quotations, as to date, author, etc., it would have given them more value. He leaves this vague.



CHAPTER XI.

OF THE KINGDOMS OF LAMBRI AND FANSUR.

When you leave that kingdom you come to another which is called LAMBRI. [NOTE 1] The people are Idolaters, and call themselves the subjects of the Great Kaan. They have plenty of Camphor and of all sorts of other spices. They also have brazil in great quantities. This they sow, and when it is grown to the size of a small shoot they take it up and transplant it; then they let it grow for three years, after which they tear it up by the root. You must know that Messer Marco Polo aforesaid brought some seed of the brazil, such as they sow, to Venice with him, and had it sown there; but never a thing came up. And I fancy it was because the climate was too cold.

Now you must know that in this kingdom of Lambri there are men with tails; these tails are of a palm in length, and have no hair on them. These people live in the mountains and are a kind of wild men. Their tails are about the thickness of a dog's.[NOTE 2] There are also plenty of unicorns in that country, and abundance of game in birds and beasts.

Now then I have told you about the kingdom of Lambri.

You then come to another kingdom which is called FANSUR. The people are Idolaters, and also call themselves subjects of the Great Kaan; and understand, they are still on the same Island that I have been telling you of. In this kingdom of Fansur grows the best Camphor in the world called Canfora Fansuri. It is so fine that it sells for its weight in fine gold.[NOTE 3]

The people have no wheat, but have rice which they eat with milk and flesh. They also have wine from trees such as I told you of. And I will tell you another great marvel. They have a kind of trees that produce flour, and excellent flour it is for food. These trees are very tall and thick, but have a very thin bark, and inside the bark they are crammed with flour. And I tell you that Messer Marco Polo, who witnessed all this, related how he and his party did sundry times partake of this flour made into bread, and found it excellent.[NOTE 4]

There is now no more to relate. For out of those eight kingdoms we have told you about six that lie at this side of the Island. I shall tell you nothing about the other two kingdoms that are at the other side of the Island, for the said Messer Marco Polo never was there. Howbeit we have told you about the greater part of this Island of the Lesser Java: so now we will quit it, and I will tell you of a very small Island that is called GAUENISPOLA.[NOTE 5]

NOTE 1.—The name of Lambri is not now traceable on our maps, nor on any list of the ports of Sumatra that I have met with; but in old times the name occurs frequently under one form or another, and its position can be assigned generally to the north part of the west coast, commencing from the neighbourhood of Achin Head.

De Barros, detailing the twenty-nine kingdoms which divided the coast of Sumatra, at the beginning of the Portuguese conquests, begins with Daya, and then passes round by the north. He names as next in order LAMBRIJ, and then Achem. This would make Lambri lie between Daya and Achin, for which there is but little room. And there is an apparent inconsistency; for in coming round again from the south, his 28th kingdom is Quinchel (Singkel of our modern maps), the 29th Mancopa, "which falls upon Lambrij, which adjoins Daya, the first that we named." Most of the data about Lambri render it very difficult to distinguish it from Achin.

The name of Lambri occurs in the Malay Chronicle, in the account of the first Mahomedan mission to convert the Island. We shall quote the passage in a following note.

The position of Lambri would render it one of the first points of Sumatra made by navigators from Arabia and India; and this seems at one time to have caused the name to be applied to the whole Island. Thus Rashiduddin speaks of the very large Island LAMURI lying beyond Ceylon, and adjoining the country of Sumatra; Odoric also goes from India across the Ocean to a certain country called LAMORI, where he began to lose sight of the North Star. He also speaks of the camphor, gold, and lign-aloes which it produced, and proceeds thence to Sumoltra in the same Island.[1] It is probable that the verzino or brazil-wood of Ameri (L'Ameri, i.e. Lambri?) which appears in the mercantile details of Pegolotti was from this part of Sumatra. It is probable also that the country called Nanwuli, which the Chinese Annals report, with Sumuntula and others, to have sent tribute to the Great Kaan in 1286, was this same Lambri which Polo tells us called itself subject to the Kaan.

In the time of the Sung Dynasty ships from T'swan-chau (or Zayton) bound for Tashi, or Arabia, used to sail in forty days to a place called Lanli-poi (probably this is also Lambri, Lambri-puri?). There they passed the winter, i.e. the south-west monsoon, just as Marco Polo's party did at Sumatra, and sailing again when the wind became fair, they reached Arabia in sixty days. (Bretschneider, p. 16.)

[The theory of Sir H. Yule is confirmed by Chinese authors quoted by Mr. Groeneveldt (Notes on the Malay Archipelago, pp. 98-100): "The country of Lambri is situated due west of Sumatra, at a distance of three days sailing with a fair wind; it lies near the sea and has a population of only about a thousand families.... On the east the country is bordered by Litai, on the west and the north by the sea, and on the south by high mountains, at the south of which is the sea again.... At the north-west of this country, in the sea, at a distance of half a day, is a flat mountain, called the Hat-island; the sea at the west of it is the great ocean, and is called the Ocean of Lambri. Ships coming from the west all take this island as a landmark." Mr. Groeneveldt adds: "Lambri [according to his extracts from Chinese authors] must have been situated on the north-western corner of the island of Sumatra, on or near the spot of the present Achin: we see that it was bounded by the sea on the north and the west, and that the Indian Ocean was called after this insignificant place, because it was considered to begin there. Moreover, the small island at half a day's distance, called Hat-island, perfectly agrees with the small islands Bras or Nasi, lying off Achin, and of which the former, with its newly-erected lighthouse, is a landmark for modern navigation, just what it is said in our text to have been for the natives then. We venture to think that the much discussed situation of Marco Polo's Lambri is definitely settled herewith." The Chinese author writes: "The mountains [of Lambri] produce the fragrant wood called Hsiang-chen Hsiang." Mr. Groeneveldt remarks (l.c. p. 143) that this "is the name of a fragrant wood, much used as incense, but which we have not been able to determine. Dr. Williams says it comes from Sumatra, where it is called laka-wood, and is the product of a tree to which the name of Tanarius major is given by him. For different reasons, we think this identification subject to doubt."

Captain M.J.C. Lucardie mentions a village called Lamreh, situated at Atjeh, near Tungkup, in the xxvi. Mukim, which might be a remnant of the country of Lameri. (Merveilles de l'Inde, p. 235.)—H.C.]

(De Barros, Dec. III. Bk. V. ch. i.; Elliot, I. 70; Cathay, 84, seqq.; Pegol. p. 361; Pauthier, p. 605.)

NOTE 2.—Stories of tailed or hairy men are common in the Archipelago, as in many other regions. Kazwini tells of the hairy little men that are found in Ramni (Sumatra) with a language like birds' chirping. Marsden was told of hairy people called Orang Gugu in the interior of the Island, who differed little, except in the use of speech, from the Orang utang. Since his time a French writer, giving the same name and same description, declares that he saw "a group" of these hairy people on the coast of Andragiri, and was told by them that they inhabited the interior of Menangkabau and formed a small tribe. It is rather remarkable that this writer makes no allusion to Marsden though his account is so nearly identical (L'Oceanie in L'Univers Pittoresque, I. 24.) [One of the stories of the Merveilles de l'Inde (p. 125) is that there are anthropophagi with tails at Lulu bilenk between Fansur and Lameri.—H.C.] Mr. Anderson says there are "a few wild people in the Siak country, very little removed in point of civilisation above their companions the monkeys," but he says nothing of hairiness nor tails. For the earliest version of the tail story we must go back to Ptolemy and the Isles of the Satyrs in this quarter; or rather to Ctesias who tells of tailed men on an Island in the Indian Sea. Jordanus also has the story of the hairy men. Galvano heard that there were on the Island certain people called Daraque Dara (?), which had tails like unto sheep. And the King of Tidore told him of another such tribe on the Isle of Batochina. Mr. St. John in Borneo met with a trader who had seen and felt the tails of such a race inhabiting the north-east coast of that Island. The appendage was 4 inches long and very stiff; so the people all used perforated seats. This Borneo story has lately been brought forward in Calcutta, and stoutly maintained, on native evidence, by an English merchant. The Chinese also have their tailed men in the mountains above Canton. In Africa there have been many such stories, of some of which an account will be found in the Bulletin de la Soc. de Geog. ser. IV. tom. iii. p. 31. It was a story among mediaeval Mahomedans that the members of the Imperial House of Trebizond were endowed with short tails, whilst mediaeval Continentals had like stories about Englishmen, as Matthew Paris relates. Thus we find in the Romance of Coeur de Lion, Richard's messengers addressed by the "Emperor of Cyprus":—

"Out, Taylards, of my palys! Now go, and say your tayled King That I owe him nothing." —Weber, II. 83.

The Princes of Purbandar, in the Peninsula of Guzerat, claim descent from the monkey-god Hanuman, and allege in justification a spinal elongation which gets them the name of Punchariah, "Taylards."

(Ethe's Kazwini, p. 221; Anderson, p. 210; St. John, Forests of the Far East, I. 40; Galvano, Hak. Soc. 108, 120; Gildemeister, 194; Allen's Indian Mail, July 28, 1869; Mid. Kingd. I. 293; N. et Ext. XIII. i. 380; Mat. Paris under A.D. 1250; Tod's Rajasthan, I. 114.)

NOTE 3.—The Camphor called Fansuri is celebrated by Arab writers at least as old as the 9th century, e.g., by the author of the first part of the Relations, by Mas'udi in the next century, also by Avicenna, by Abulfeda, by Kazwini, and by Abul Fazl, etc. In the second and third the name is miswritten Kansur, and by the last Kaisuri, but there can be no doubt of the correction required. (Reinaud, I. 7; Mas. I. 338; Liber Canonis, Ven. 1544, I. 116; Buesching, IV. 277; Gildem. p. 209; Ain-i-Akb. p. 78.) In Serapion we find the same camphor described as that of Pansor; and when, leaving Arab authorities and the earlier Middle Ages we come to Garcias, he speaks of the same article under the name of camphor of Barros. And this is the name—Kapur Barus—derived from the port which has been the chief shipping-place of Sumatran camphor for at least three centuries, by which the native camphor is still known in Eastern trade, as distinguished from the Kapur China or Kapur-Japun, as the Malays term the article derived in those countries by distillation from the Laurus Camphora. The earliest western mention of camphor is in the same prescription by the physician Aetius (circa A.D. 540) that contains one of the earliest mentions of musk. (supra, I. p. 279.) The prescription ends: "and if you have a supply of camphor add two ounces of that." (Aetii Medici Graeci Tetrabiblos, etc., Froben, 1549, p. 910.)

It is highly probable that Fansur and Barus may be not only the same locality but mere variations of the same name.[2] The place is called in the Shijarat Malayu, Pasuri, a name which the Arabs certainly made into Fansuri in one direction, and which might easily in another, by a very common kind of Oriental metathesis, pass into Barusi. The legend in the Shijarat Malayu relates to the first Mahomedan mission for the conversion of Sumatra, sent by the Sherif of Mecca via India. After sailing from Malabar the first place the party arrived at was PASURI, the people of which embraced Islam. They then proceeded to LAMBRI, which also accepted the Faith. Then they sailed on till they reached Haru (see on my map Aru on the East Coast), which did likewise. At this last place they enquired for SAMUDRA, which seems to have been the special object of their mission, and found that they had passed it. Accordingly they retraced their course to PERLAK, and after converting that place went on to SAMUDRA, where they converted Mara Silu the King. (See note 1, ch. x. above.) This passage is of extreme interest as naming four out of Marco's six kingdoms, and in positions quite accordant with his indications. As noticed by Mr. Braddell, from whose abstract I take the passage, the circumstance of the party having passed Samudra unwittingly is especially consistent with the site we have assigned to it near the head of the Bay of Pasei, as a glance at the map will show.

Valentyn observes: "Fansur can be nought else than the famous Pantsur, no longer known indeed by that name, but a kingdom which we become acquainted with through Hamza Pantsuri, a celebrated Poet, and native of this Pantsur. It lay in the north angle of the Island, and a little west of Achin: it formerly was rife with trade and population, but would have been utterly lost in oblivion had not Hamza Pantsuri made us again acquainted with it." Nothing indeed could well be "a little west of Achin"; this is doubtless a slip for "a little down the west coast from Achin." Hamza Fantsuri, as he is termed by Professor Veth, who also identifies Fantsur with Barus, was a poet of the first half of the 17th century, who in his verses popularised the mystical theology of Shamsuddin Shamatrani (supra, p. 291), strongly tinged with pantheism. The works of both were solemnly burnt before the great mosque of Achin about 1640. (J. Ind. Arch. V. 312 seqq; Valentyn, Sumatra, in Vol. V., p. 21; Veth, Atchin, Leiden, 1873, p. 38.)

Mas'udi says that the Fansur Camphor was found most plentifully in years rife with storms and earthquakes. Ibn Batuta gives a jumbled and highly incorrect account of the product, but one circumstance that he mentions is possibly founded on a real superstition, viz., that no camphor was formed unless some animal had been sacrificed at the root of the tree, and the best quality only then when a human victim had been offered. Nicolo Conti has a similar statement: "The Camphor is found inside the tree, and if they do not sacrifice to the gods before they cut the bark, it disappears and is no more seen." Beccari, in our day, mentions special ceremonies used by the Kayans of Borneo, before they commence the search. These superstitions hinge on the great uncertainty of finding camphor in any given tree, after the laborious process of cutting it down and splitting it, an uncertainty which also largely accounts for the high price. By far the best of the old accounts of the product is that quoted by Kazwini from Mahomed Ben Zakaria Al-Razi: "Among the number of marvellous things in this Island" (Zanij for Zabaj, i.e. Java or Sumatra) "is the Camphor Tree, which is of vast size, insomuch that its shade will cover a hundred persons and more. They bore into the highest part of the tree and thence flows out the camphor-water, enough to fill many pitchers. Then they open the tree lower down about the middle, and extract the camphor in lumps." [This very account is to be found in Ibn Khordadhbeh. (De Goeje's transl. p. 45.)—H.C.] Compare this passage, which we may notice has been borrowed bodily by Sindbad of the Sea, with what is probably the best modern account, Junghuhn's: "Among the forest trees (of Tapanuli adjoining Barus) the Camphor Tree (Dryabalanops Camphora) attracts beyond all the traveller's observation, by its straight columnar and colossal grey trunk, and its mighty crown of foliage, rising high above the canopy of the forest. It exceeds in dimensions the Rasamala,[3] the loftiest tree of Java, and is probably the greatest tree of the Archipelago, if not of the world,[4] reaching a height of 200 feet. One of the middling size which I had cut down measured at the base, where the camphor leaks out, 7-1/2 Paris feet in diameter (about 8 feet English); its trunk rose to 100 feet, with an upper diameter of 5 feet, before dividing, and the height of the whole tree to the crown was 150 feet. The precious consolidated camphor is found in small quantities, 1/4 lb. to 1 lb. in a single tree, in fissure-like hollows in the stem. Yet many are cut down in vain, or split up the side without finding camphor. The camphor oil is prepared by the natives by bruising and boiling the twigs." The oil, however, appears also to be found in the tree, as Crawford and Collingwood mention, corroborating the ancient Arab.

It is well known that the Chinese attach an extravagantly superior value to the Malay camphor, and probably its value in Marco's day was higher than it is now, but still its estimate as worth its weight in gold looks like hyperbole. Forrest, a century ago, says Barus Camphor was in the Chinese market worth nearly its weight in silver, and this is true still. The price is commonly estimated at 100 times that of the Chinese camphor. The whole quantity exported from the Barus territory goes to China. De Vriese reckons the average annual export from Sumatra between 1839 and 1844 at less than 400 kilogrammes. The following table shows the wholesale rates in the Chinese market as given by Rondot in 1848:—

Qualities of Camphor. Per picul of 133-1/3 lbs. Ordinary China, 1st quality 20 dollars. " " 2nd " 14 " Formosa 25 " Japan 30 " China ngai (ext. from an Artemisia) 250 " Barus, 1st quality 2000 " " 2nd " 1000 "

The Chinese call the Sumatran (or Borneo) Camphor Ping-pien "Icicle flakes," and Lung-nan "Dragon's Brains." [Regarding Baros Camphor, Mr. Groeneveldt writes (Notes, p. 142): "This substance is generally called dragon's brain perfume, or icicles. The former name has probably been invented by the first dealers in the article, who wanted to impress their countrymen with a great idea of its value and rarity. In the trade three different qualities are distinguished: the first is called prune-blossoms, being the larger pieces; the second is rice-camphor, so called because the particles are not larger than a rice-kernel, and the last quality is golden dregs, in the shape of powder. These names are still now used by the Chinese traders on the west coast of Sumatra. The Pen-ts'au Kang-mu further informs us that the Camphor Baros is found in the trunk of a tree in a solid shape, whilst from the roots an oil is obtained called Po-lut (Pa-lut) incense, or Polut balm. The name of Polut is said to be derived from the country where it is found (Baros.)" —H. C] It is just to remark, however, that in the Ain Akbari we find the price of the Sumatran Camphor, known to the Hindus as Bhim Seni, varying from 3 rupees as high as 2 mohurs (or 20 rupees) for a rupee's weight, which latter price would be twice the weight in gold. Abul Fazl says the worst camphor went by the name of Balus. I should suspect some mistake, as we know from Garcias that the fine camphor was already known as Barus. (Ain-i-Akb. 75-79.)

(Mas'udi, I. 338; I.B. IV. 241; J.A. ser. IV. tom. viii. 216; Lane's Arab. Nights (1859), III. 21; Battalaender, I. 107; Crawf. Hist. III. 218, and Desc. Dict. 81; Hedde et Rondot, Com. de la Chine, 36-37; Chin. Comm. Guide; Dr. F.A. Flueckiger, Zur Geschichte des Camphers, in Schweiz. Wochenschr. fuer Pharmacie, Sept., Oct., 1867.)

NOTE 4.—An interesting notice of the Sago-tree, of which Odoric also gives an account. Ramusio is, however, here fuller and more accurate: "Removing the first bark, which is but thin, you come on the wood of the tree which forms a thickness all round of some three fingers, but all inside this is a pith of flour, like that of the Carvolo (?). The trees are so big that it will take two men to span them. They put this flour into tubs of water, and beat it up with a stick, and then the bran and other impurities come to the top, whilst the pure flour sinks to the bottom. The water is then thrown away, and the cleaned flour that remains is taken and made into pasta in strips and other forms. These Messer Marco often partook of, and brought some with him to Venice. It resembles barley bread and tastes much the same. The wood of this tree is like iron, for if thrown into the water it goes straight to the bottom. It can be split straight from end to end like a cane. When the flour has been removed the wood remains, as has been said, three inches thick. Of this the people make short lances, not long ones, because they are so heavy that no one could carry or handle them if long. One end is sharpened and charred in the fire, and when thus prepared they will pierce any armour, and much better than iron would do." Marsden points out that this heavy lance-wood is not that of the true Sago-palm, but of the Nibong or Caryota urens; which does indeed give some amount of sago.

["When sago is to be made, a full-grown tree is selected just before it is going to flower. It is cut down close to the ground, the leaves and leaf-stalks cleared away, and a broad strip of the bark taken off the upper side of the trunk. This exposes the pithy matter, which is of a rusty colour near the bottom of the tree, but higher up pure white, about as hard as a dry apple, but with woody fibres running through it about a quarter of an inch apart. This pith is cut or broken down into a coarse powder, by means of a tool constructed for the purpose.... Water is poured on the mass of pith, which is kneaded and pressed against the strainer till the starch is all dissolved and has passed through, when the fibrous refuse is thrown away, and a fresh basketful put in its place. The water charged with sago starch passes on to a trough, with a depression in the centre, where the sediment is deposited, the surplus water trickling off by a shallow outlet. When the trough is nearly full, the mass of starch, which has a slight reddish tinge, is made into cylinders of about thirty pounds' weight, and neatly covered with sago leaves, and in this state is sold as raw sago. Boiled with water this forms a thick glutinous mass, with a rather astringent taste, and is eaten with salt, limes, and chilies. Sago-bread is made in large quantities, by baking it into cakes in a small clay oven containing six or eight slits side by side, each about three-quarters of an inch wide, and six or eight inches square. The raw sago is broken up, dried in the sun, powdered, and finely sifted. The oven is heated over a clear fire of embers, and is lightly filled with the sago powder. The openings are then covered with a flat piece of sago bark, and in about five minutes the cakes are turned out sufficiently baked. The hot cakes are very nice with butter, and when made with the addition of a little sugar and grated cocoa-nut are quite a delicacy. They are soft, and something like corn-flour cakes, but have a slight characteristic flavour which is lost in the refined sago we use in this country. When not wanted for immediate use, they are dried for several days in the sun, and tied up in bundles of twenty. They will then keep for years; they are very hard, and very rough and dry...." (A. R. Wallace's Malay Archipelago, 1869, II. pp. 118-121.) —H.C.]

NOTE 5.—In quitting the subject of these Sumatran Kingdoms it may appear to some readers that our explanations compress them too much, especially as Polo seems to allow only two kingdoms for the rest of the Island. In this he was doubtless wrong, and we may the less scruple to say so as he had not visited that other portion of the Island. We may note that in the space to which we assign the six kingdoms which Polo visited, De Barros assigns twelve, viz.: Bara (corresponding generally to Ferlec), Pacem (Basma), Pirada, Lide, Pedir, Biar, Achin, Lambri, Daya, Mancopa, Quinchel, Barros (Fansur). (Dec. III. v. 1.)

[Regarding these Sumatrian kingdoms, Mr. Thomson (Proc.R.G.S. XX. p. 223) writes that Malaiur "is no other than Singapore ... the ancient capital of the Malays or Malaiurs of old voyagers, existent in the times of Marco Polo [who] mentions no kingdom or city in Java Minor till he arrives at the kingdom of Felech or Perlak. And this is just as might be expected, as the channel in the Straits of Malacca leads on the north-eastern side out of sight of Sumatra; and the course, after clearing the shoals near Selangore, being direct towards Diamond Point, near which ... the tower of Perlak is situated. Thus we see that the Venetian traveller describes the first city or kingdom in the great island that he arrived at.... [After Basman and Samara] Polo mentions Dragoian ... from the context, and following Marco Polo's course, we would place it west from his last city or Kingdom Samara; and we make no doubt, if the name is not much corrupted, it may yet be identified in one of the villages of the coast at this present time.... By the Malay annalist, Lambri was west of Samara; consecutively it was also westerly from Samara by Marco Polo's enumeration. Fanfur ... is the last kingdom named by Marco Polo [coming from the east], and the first by the Malay annalist [coming from the west]; and as it is known to modern geographers, this corroboration doubly settles the identity and position of all. Thus all the six cities or kingdoms mentioned by Marco Polo were situated on the north coast of Sumatra, now commonly known as the Pedir coast." I have given the conclusion arrived at by Mr. J.T. Thomson in his paper, Marco Polo's Six Kingdoms or Cities in Java Minor, identified in translations from the ancient Malay Annals, which appeared in the Proc.R.G.S. XX. pp. 215-224, after the second edition of this Book was published and Sir H. Yule added the following note (Proc., l.c., p. 224): "Mr. Thomson, as he mentions, has not seen my edition of Marco Polo, nor, apparently, a paper on the subject of these kingdoms by the late Mr. J.R. Logan, in his Journal of the Indian Archipelago, to which reference is made in the notes to Marco Polo. In the said paper and notes the quotations and conclusions of Mr. Thomson have been anticipated; and Fansur also, which he leaves undetermined, identified."—H.C.]

[1] I formerly supposed Al-Ramni, the oldest Arabic name of Sumatra, to be a corruption of Lambri; but this is more probably of Hindu origin. One of the Dvipas of the ocean mentioned in the Puranas is called Ramaniyaka, "delightfulness." (Williams's Skt. Dict.)

[2] Van der Tuuk says positively, I find: "Fantsur was the ancient name of Barus." (J.R.A.S. n.s. II. 232.) [Professor Schlegel writes also (Geog. Notes, XVI. p. 9): "At all events, Fansur or Pantsur can be naught but Baros."—H.C.]

[3] Liquidambar Altingiana.

[4] The Californian and Australian giants of 400 feet were not then known.



CHAPTER XII.

CONCERNING THE ISLAND OF NECUVERAN.

When you leave the Island of Java (the less) and the kingdom of Lambri, you sail north about 150 miles, and then you come to two Islands, one of which is called NECUVERAN. In this Island they have no king nor chief, but live like beasts. And I tell you they go all naked, both men and women, and do not use the slightest covering of any kind. They are Idolaters. Their woods are all of noble and valuable kinds of trees; such as Red Sanders and Indian-nut and Cloves and Brazil and sundry other good spices. [NOTE 1]

There is nothing else worth relating; so we will go on, and I will tell you of an Island called Angamanain.

NOTE 1.—The end of the last chapter and the commencement of this I have taken from the G. Text. There has been some confusion in the notes of the original dictation which that represents, and corrections have made it worse. Thus Pauthier's text runs: "I will tell you of two small Islands, one called Gauenispola and the other Necouran," and then: "You sail north about 150 miles and find two Islands, one called Necouran and the other Gauenispola." Ramusio does not mention Gauenispola, but says in the former passage: "I will tell you of a small Island called Nocueran"—and then: "You find two islands, one called Nocueran and the other Angaman."

Knowing the position of Gauenispola there is no difficulty in seeing how the passage should be explained. Something has interrupted the dictation after the last chapter. Polo asks Rusticiano, "Where were we?" "Leaving the Great Island." Polo forgets the "very small Island called Gauenispola," and passes to the north, where he has to tell us of two islands, "one called Necuveran and the other Angamanain." So, I do not doubt, the passage should run.

Let us observe that his point of departure in sailing north to the Nicobar Islands was the Kingdom of Lambri. This seems to indicate that Lambri included Achin Head or came very near it, an indication which we shall presently see confirmed.

As regards Gauenispola, of which he promised to tell us and forgot his promise, its name has disappeared from our modern maps, but it is easily traced in the maps of the 16th and 17th centuries, and in the books of navigators of that time. The latest in which I have observed it is the Neptune Oriental, Paris 1775, which calls it Pulo Gommes. The name is there applied to a small island off Achin Head, outside of which lie the somewhat larger Islands of Pulo Nankai (or Nasi) and Pulo Bras, whilst Pulo Wai lies further east.[1] I imagine, however, that the name was by the older navigators applied to the larger Island of Pulo Bras, or to the whole group. Thus Alexander Hamilton, who calls it Gomus and Pulo Gomuis, says that "from the Island of Gomus and Pulo Wey ... the southernmost of the Nicobars may be seen." Dampier most precisely applies the name of Pulo Gomez to the larger island which modern charts call Pulo Bras. So also Beaulieu couples the islands of "Gomispoda and Pulo Way" in front of the roadstead of Achin. De Barros mentions that Gaspar d'Acosta was lost on the Island of Gomispola. Linschoten, describing the course from Cochin to Malacca, says: "You take your course towards the small Isles of GOMESPOLA, which are in 6 deg., near the corner of Achin in the Island of Sumatra." And the Turkish author of the Mohit, in speaking of the same navigation, says: "If you wish to reach Malacca, guard against seeing JAMISFULAH ([Arabic]), because the mountains of LAMRI advance into the sea, and the flood is there very strong." The editor has misunderstood the geography of this passage, which evidently means "Don't go near enough to Achin Head to see even the islands in front of it." And here we see again that Lambri is made to extend to Achin Head. The passage is illustrated by the report of the first English Voyage to the Indies. Their course was for the Nicobars, but "by the Master's fault in not duly observing the South Star, they fell to the southward of them, within sight of the Islands of Gomes Polo." (Nept. Orient. Charts 38 and 39, and pp. 126-127; Hamilton, II. 66 and Map; Dampier, ed. 1699, II. 122; H. Gen. des Voyages, XII. 310; Linschoten, Routier, p. 30; De Barros, Dec. III. liv. iii. cap. 3; J.A.S.B. VI. 807; Astley, I. 238.)

The two islands (or rather groups of islands) Necuveran and Angamanain are the Nicobar and Andaman groups. A nearer trace of the form Necuveran, or Necouran as it stands in some MSS., is perhaps preserved in Nancouri, the existing name of one of the islands. They are perhaps the Nalo-kilo-cheu (Narikela-dvipa) or Coco-nut Islands of which Hiuen Tsang speaks as existing some thousand li to the south of Ceylon. The men, he had heard, were but 3 feet high, and had the beaks of birds. They had no cultivation and lived on coco-nuts. The islands are also believed to be the Lanja balus or Lankha balus of the old Arab navigators: "These Islands support a numerous population. Both men and women go naked, only the women wear a girdle of the leaves of trees. When a ship passes near, the men come out in boats of various sizes and barter ambergris and coco-nuts for iron," a description which has applied accurately for many centuries. [Ibn Khordadhbeh says (De Goeje's transl., p. 45) that the inhabitants of Nicobar (Alankabalous), an island situated at ten or fifteen days from Serendib, are naked; they live on bananas, fresh fish, and coco-nuts; the precious metal is iron in their country; they frequent foreign merchants.—H.C.] Rashiduddin writes of them nearly in the same terms under the name of Lakvaram, but read NAKAVARAM opposite LAMURI. Odoric also has a chapter on the island of Nicoveran, but it is one full of fable. (H. Tsang, III. 114 and 517; Relations, p. 8; Elliot, I. p. 71; Cathay, p. 97.)

[Mr. G. Phillips writes (J.R.A.S., July 1895, P. 529) that the name Tsui-lan given to the Nicobars by the Chinese is, he has but little doubt, "a corruption of Nocueran, the name given by Marco Polo to the group. The characters Tsui-lan are pronounced Ch'ui-lan in Amoy, out of which it is easy to make Cueran. The Chinese omitted the initial syllable and called them the Cueran Islands, while Marco Polo called them the Nocueran Islands."—H.C.]

[The Nicobar Islands "are generally known by the Chinese under the name of Rakchas or Demons who devour men, from the belief that their inhabitants were anthropophagi. In A.D. 607, the Emperor of China, Yang-ti, had sent an envoy to Siam, who also reached the country of the Rakchas. According to Tu-yen's T'ung-tien, the Nicobars lie east [west] of Poli. Its inhabitants are very ugly, having red hair, black bodies, teeth like beasts, and claws like hawks. Sometimes they traded with Lin-yih (Champa), but then at night; in day-time they covered their faces." (G. Schlegel, Geog. Notes, I. pp. 1-2).—H.C.]

Mr. Phillips, from his anonymous Chinese author, gives a quaint legend as to the nakedness of these islanders. Sakya Muni, having arrived from Ceylon, stopped at the islands to bathe. Whilst he was in the water the natives stole his clothes, upon which the Buddha cursed them; and they have never since been able to wear any clothing without suffering for it.

[Professor Schlegel gives the same legend (Geog. Notes, I. p. 8) with reference to the Andaman Islands from the Sing-ch'a Sheng-lan, published in 1436 by Fei-sin; Mr. Phillips seems to have made a confusion between the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. (Doolittle's Vocab. II. p. 556; cf. Schlegel, l.c. p. 11.)—H.C.]

The chief part of the population is believed to be of race akin to the Malay, but they seem to be of more than one race, and there is great variety in dialect. There have long been reports of a black tribe with woolly hair in the unknown interior of the Great Nicobar, and my friend Colonel H. Man, when Superintendent of our Andaman Settlements, received spontaneous corroboration of this from natives of the former island, who were on a visit to Port Blair. Since this has been in type I have seen in the F. of India (28th July, 1874) notice of a valuable work by F.A. de Roepstorff on the dialects and manners of the Nicobarians. This notice speaks of an aboriginal race called Shob'aengs, "purely Mongolian," but does not mention negritoes. The natives do not now go quite naked; the men wear a narrow cloth; and the women a grass girdle. They are very skilful in management of their canoes. Some years since there were frightful disclosures regarding the massacre of the crews of vessels touching at these islands, and this has led eventually to their occupation by the Indian Government. Trinkat and Nancouri are the islands which were guilty. A woman of Trinkat who could speak Malay was examined by Colonel Man, and she acknowledged having seen nineteen vessels scuttled, after their cargoes had been plundered and their crews massacred. "The natives who were captured at Trinkat," says Colonel Man in another letter, "were a most savage-looking set, with remarkably long arms, and very projecting eye-teeth."

The islands have always been famous for the quality and abundance of their "Indian Nuts," i.e. cocos. The tree of next importance to the natives is a kind of Pandanus, from the cooked fruit of which they express an edible substance called Melori, of which you may read in Dampier; they have the betel and areca; and they grow yams, but only for barter. As regards the other vegetation, mentioned by Polo, I will quote, what Colonel Man writes to me from the Andamans, which probably is in great measure applicable to the Nicobars also! "Our woods are very fine, and doubtless resemble those of the Nicobars. Sapan wood (i.e. Polo's Brazil) is in abundance; coco-nuts, so numerous in the Nicobars, and to the north in the Cocos, are not found naturally with us, though they grow admirably when cultivated. There is said to be sandal-wood in our forests, and camphor, but I have not yet come across them. I do not believe in cloves, but we have lots of the wild nutmeg."[2] The last, and cardamoms, are mentioned in the Voyage of the Novara, vol. ii., in which will be found a detail of the various European attempts to colonise the Nicobar Islands with other particulars. (See also J.A.S.B. XV. 344 seqq.) [See Schlegel's Geog. Notes, XVI., The Old States in the Island of Sumatra.—H.C.]

[1] It was a mistake to suppose the name had disappeared, for it is applied, in the form Pulo Gaimr, to the small island above indicated, in Colonel Versteeg's map to Veth's Atchin (1873). In a map chiefly borrowed from that, in Ocean Highways, August, 1873, I have ventured to restore the name as Pulo Gomus. The name is perhaps (Mal.) Gamas, "hard, rough."

[2] Kurz's Vegetation of the Andaman Islands gives four myristicae (nutmegs); but no sandal-wood nor camphor-laurel. Nor do I find sappan-wood, though there is another Caesalpinia (C. Nuga).



CHAPTER XIII.

CONCERNING THE ISLAND OF ANGAMANAIN.

Angamanain is a very large Island. The people are without a king and are Idolaters, and no better than wild beasts. And I assure you all the men of this Island of Angamanain have heads like dogs, and teeth and eyes likewise; in fact, in the face they are all just like big mastiff dogs! They have a quantity of spices; but they are a most cruel generation, and eat everybody that they can catch, if not of their own race.[NOTE 1] They live on flesh and rice and milk, and have fruits different from any of ours.

Now that I have told you about this race of people, as indeed it was highly proper to do in this our book, I will go on to tell you about an Island called Seilan, as you shall hear.

NOTE 1.—Here Marco speaks of the remarkable population of the Andaman Islands—Oriental negroes in the lowest state of barbarism—who have remained in their isolated and degraded condition, so near the shores of great civilised countries, for so many ages. "Rice and milk" they have not, and their fruits are only wild ones.

[From the Sing-ch'a Sheng-lan quoted by Professor Schlegel (Geog. Notes, I. p. 8) we learn that these islanders have neither "rice or corn, but only descend into the sea and catch fish and shrimps in their nets; they also plant Banians and Cocoa-trees for their food."—H.C.]

I imagine our traveller's form Angamanain to be an Arabic (oblique) dual—"The two ANDAMANS," viz. The Great and The Little, the former being in truth a chain of three islands, but so close and nearly continuous as to form apparently one, and to be named as such.



[Professor Schlegel writes (Geog. Notes. I. p. 12): "This etymology is to be rejected because the old Chinese transcription gives So—(or Sun) daman.... The Pien-i-tien (ch. 107, I. fol. 30) gives a description of Andaman, here called An-to-man kwoh, quoted from the San-tsai Tu-hwui."—H.C.]

The origin of the name seems to be unknown. The only person to my knowledge who has given a meaning to it is Nicolo Conti, who says it means "Island of Gold"; probably a mere sailor's yarn. The name, however, is very old, and may perhaps be traced in Ptolemy; for he names an island of cannibals called that of Good Fortune, [Greek: Agathou daimonos]. It seems probable enough that this was [Greek: Agdaimouos Naesos], or the like, "The Angdaman Island," misunderstood. His next group of Islands is the Barussae, which seems again to be the Lankha Balus of the oldest Arab navigators, since these are certainly the Nicobars. [The name first appears distinctly in the Arab narratives of the 9th century. (Yule, Hobson-Jobson.)]

The description of the natives of the Andaman Islands in the early Arab Relations has been often quoted, but it is too like our traveller's account to be omitted: "The inhabitants of these islands eat men alive. They are black with woolly hair, and in their eyes and countenance there is something quite frightful.... They go naked, and have no boats. If they had they would devour all who passed near them. Sometimes ships that are wind-bound, and have exhausted their provision of water, touch here and apply to the natives for it; in such cases the crew sometimes fall into the hands of the latter, and most of them are massacred" (p. 9).



The traditional charge of cannibalism against these people used to be very persistent, though it is generally rejected since our settlement upon the group in 1858. Mr. Logan supposes the report was cherished by those who frequented the islands for edible birds' nests, in order to keep the monopoly. Of their murdering the crews of wrecked vessels, like their Nicobar neighbours, I believe there is no doubt; and it has happened in our own day. Cesare Federici, in Ramusio, speaks of the terrible fate of crews wrecked on the Andamans; all such were killed and eaten by the natives, who refused all intercourse with strangers. A. Hamilton mentions a friend of his who was wrecked on the islands; nothing more was ever heard of the ship's company, "which gave ground to conjecture that they were all devoured by those savage cannibals."

They do not, in modern times, I believe, in their canoes, quit their own immediate coast, but Hamilton says they used, in his time, to come on forays to the Nicobar Islands; and a paper in the Asiatic Researches mentions a tradition to the same effect as existing on the Car Nicobar. They have retained all the aversion to intercourse anciently ascribed to them, and they still go naked as of old, the utmost exception being a leaf-apron worn by the women near the British Settlement.

The Dog-head feature is at least as old as Ctesias. The story originated, I imagine, in the disgust with which "allophylian" types of countenance are regarded, kindred to the feeling which makes the Hindus and other eastern nations represent the aborigines whom they superseded as demons. The Cubans described the Caribs to Columbus as man-eaters with dogs' muzzles; and the old Danes had tales of Cynocephali in Finland. A curious passage from the Arab geographer Ibn Said pays an ambiguous compliment to the forefathers of Moltke and Von Roon: "The Borus (Prussians) are a miserable people, and still more savage than the Russians..... One reads in some books that the Borus have dogs' faces; it is a way of saying that they are very brave" Ibn Batuta describes an Indo-Chinese tribe on the coast of Arakan or Pegu as having dogs' mouths, but says the women were beautiful. Friar Jordanus had heard the same of the dog-headed islanders. And one odd form of the story, found, strange to say, both in China and diffused over Ethiopia, represents the males as actual dogs whilst the females are women. Oddly, too, Pere Barbe tells us that a tradition of the Nicobar people themselves represent them as of canine descent, but on the female side! The like tale in early Portuguese days was told of the Peguans, viz. that they sprang from a dog and a Chinese woman. It is mentioned by Camoens (X. 122). Note, however, that in Colonel Man's notice of the wilder part of the Nicobar people the projecting canine teeth are spoken of.

Abraham Roger tells us that the Coromandel Brahmans used to say that the Rakshasas or Demons had their abode "on the Island of Andaman lying on the route from Pulicat to Pegu," and also that they were man-eaters. This would be very curious if it were a genuine old Brahmanical Saga; but I fear it may have been gathered from the Arab seamen. Still it is remarkable that a strange weird-looking island, a steep and regular volcanic cone, which rises covered with forest to a height of 2150 feet, straight out of the deep sea to the eastward of the Andaman group, bears the name Narkandam, in which one cannot but recognise [Script], Narak, "Hell"; perhaps Naraka-kundam, "a pit of hell." Can it be that in old times, but still contemporary with Hindu navigation, this volcano was active, and that some Brahman St. Brandon recognised in it the mouth of Hell, congenial to the Rakshasas of the adjacent group?

"Si est de saint Brandon le matere furnie; Qui fu si pres d'enfer, a nef et a galie, Que deable d'enfer issirent, par maistrie, Getans brandons de feu, pour lui faire hasquie." —Bauduin de Seboure, I. 123.

(Ramusio, III. 391; Ham. II. 65; Navarrete (Fr. Ed.), II. 101; Cathay, 467; Bullet. de la Soc. de Geog. ser. IV. tom iii. 36-37; J.A.S.B. u.s.; Reinaud's Abulfeda, I. 315; J. Ind. Arch., N.S., III. I. 105; La Porte Ouverte, p. 188.) [I shall refer to my edition of Odoric, 206-217, for a long notice on dog-headed barbarians; I reproduce here two of the cuts.—H.C.]



CHAPTER XIV.

CONCERNING THE ISLAND OF SEILAN.

When you leave the Island of Angamanain and sail about a thousand miles in a direction a little south of west, you come to the Island of SEILAN, [NOTE 1] which is in good sooth the best Island of its size in the world. You must know that it has a compass of 2400 miles, but in old times it was greater still, for it then had a circuit of about 3600 miles, as you find in the charts of the mariners of those seas. But the north wind there blows with such strength that it has caused the sea to submerge a large part of the Island; and that is the reason why it is not so big now as it used to be. For you must know that, on the side where the north wind strikes, the Island is very low and flat, insomuch that in approaching on board ship from the high seas you do not see the land till you are right upon it.[NOTE 2] Now I will tell you all about this Island.



They have a king there whom they call SENDEMAIN, and are tributary to nobody.[NOTE 3] The people are Idolaters, and go quite naked except that they cover the middle. They have no wheat, but have rice, and sesamum of which they make their oil. They live on flesh and milk, and have tree-wine such as I have told you of. And they have brazil-wood, much the best in the world.[NOTE 4]

Now I will quit these particulars, and tell you of the most precious article that exists in the world. You must know that rubies are found in this Island and in no other country in the world but this. They find there also sapphires and topazes and amethysts, and many other stones of price. And the King of this Island possesses a ruby which is the finest and biggest in the world; I will tell you what it is like. It is about a palm in length, and as thick as a man's arm; to look at, it is the most resplendent object upon earth; it is quite free from flaw and as red as fire. Its value is so great that a price for it in money could hardly be named at all. You must know that the Great Kaan sent an embassy and begged the King as a favour greatly desired by him to sell him this ruby, offering to give for it the ransom of a city, or in fact what the King would. But the King replied that on no account whatever would he sell it, for it had come to him from his ancestors.[NOTE 5]

The people of Seilan are no soldiers, but poor cowardly creatures. And when they have need of soldiers they get Saracen troops from foreign parts.

[NOTE 1.—Mr. Geo. Phillips gives (Seaports of India, p. 216 et seqq.) the Star Chart used by Chinese Navigators on their return voyage from Ceylon to Su-men-ta-la.—H.C.]

NOTE 2.—Valentyn appears to be repeating a native tradition when he says: "In old times the island had, as they loosely say, a good 400 miles (i.e. Dutch, say 1600 miles) of compass, but at the north end the sea has from time to time carried away a large part of it." (Ceylon, in vol. v., p. 18.) Curious particulars touching the exaggerated ideas of the ancients, inherited by the Arabs, as to the dimensions of Ceylon, will be found in Tennent's Ceylon, ch. i. The Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsang has the same tale. According to him, the circuit was 7000 li, or 1400 miles. We see from Marco's curious notice of the old charts (G.T. "selonc qe se treuve en la mapemondi des mariner de cel mer") that travellers had begun to find that the dimensions were exaggerated. The real circuit is under 700 miles!

On the ground that all the derivations of the name SAILAN or CEYLON from the old Sinhala, Serendib, and what not, seem forced, Van der Tuuk has suggested that the name may have been originally Javanese, being formed (he says) according to the rules of that language from Sela, "a precious stone," so that Pulo Selan would be the "Island of Gems." [Professor Schlegel says (Geog. Notes, I. p. 19, note) that "it seems better to think of the Sanskrit sila, 'a stone or rock,' or saila, 'a mountain,' which agree with the Chinese interpretation."—H.C.] The Island was really called anciently Ratnadvipa, "the Island of Gems" (Mem. de H.Y., II. 125, and Harivansa, I. 403); and it is termed by an Arab Historian of the 9th century Jazirat al Yakut, "The Isle of Rubies." [The (Chinese) characters ya-ku-pao-shih are in some accounts of Ceylon used to express Yakut. (Ma-Huan, transl. by Phillips, p. 213.)—H.C.] As a matter of fact, we derive originally from the Malays nearly all the forms we have adopted for names of countries reached by sea to the east of the Bay of Bengal, e.g. Awa, Barma, Paigu, Siyam, China, Japun, Kochi (Cochin China), Champa, Kamboja, Maluka (properly a place in the Island of Ceram), Suluk, Burnei, Tanasari, Martavan, etc. That accidents in the history of marine affairs in those seas should have led to the adoption of the Malay and Javanese names in the case of Ceylon also is at least conceivable. But Dr. Caldwell has pointed out to me that the Pali form of Sinhala was Sihalan, and that this must have been colloquially shortened to Silan, for it appears in old Tamul inscriptions as Ilam.[1] Hence there is nothing really strained in the derivation of Sailan from Sinhala. Tennent (Ceylon, I. 549) and Crawford (Malay Dict. p. 171) ascribe the name Selan, Zeilan, to the Portuguese, but this is quite unfounded, as our author sufficiently testifies. The name Sailan also occurs in Rashiduddin, in Hayton, and in Jordanus (see next note). (See Van der Tuuk, work quoted above (p. 287), p. 118; J. As. ser. IV., tom. viii. 145; J. Ind. Arch. IV. 187; Elliot, I. 70.) [Sinhala or Sihala, "lions' abode," with the addition of "Island," Sihala-dvipa, comes down to us in Cosmas [Greek: Sielediba] (Hobson-Jobson).]

NOTE 3.—The native king at this time was Pandita Prakrama Bahu III., who reigned from 1267 to 1301 at Dambadenia, about 40 miles north-north-east of Columbo. But the Tamuls of the continent had recently been in possession of the whole northern half of the island. The Singhalese Chronicle represents Prakrama to have recovered it from them, but they are so soon again found in full force that the completeness of this recovery may be doubted. There were also two invasions of Malays (Javaku) during this reign, under the lead of a chief called Chandra Banu. On the second occasion this invader was joined by a large Tamul reinforcement. Sir E. Tennent suggests that this Chandra Banu may be Polo's Sende-main or Sendernaz, as Ramusio has it. Or he may have been the Tamul chief in the north; the first part of the name may have been either Chandra or Sundara.

NOTE 4.—Kazwini names the brazil, or sapan-wood of Ceylon. Ibn Batuta speaks of its abundance (IV. 166); and Ribeyro does the like (ed. of Columbo, 1847, p. 16); see also Ritter, VI. 39, 122; and Trans. R.A.S. I. 539.

Sir E. Tennent has observed that Ibn Batuta is the first to speak of the Ceylon cinnamon. It is, however, mentioned by Kazwini (circa A.D. 1275), and in a letter written from Mabar by John of Montecorvino about the very time that Marco was in these seas. (See Ethe's Kazwini, 229, and Cathay, 213.)

[Mr. G. Phillips, in the Jour. China B.R.A.Soc., XX. 1885, pp. 209-226; XXI. 1886, pp. 30-42, has given, under the title of The Seaports of India and Ceylon, a translation of some parts of the Ying-yai-sheng-lan, a work of a Chinese Mahomedan, Ma-Huan, who was attached to the suite of Ch'eng-Ho, an envoy of the Emperor Yong-Lo (A.D. 1403-1425) to foreign countries. Mr. Phillips's translation is a continuation of the Notes of Mr. W.P. Groeneveldt, who leaves us at Lambri, on the coast of Sumatra. Ma-Huan takes us to the Ts'ui-lan Islands (Nicobars) and to Hsi-lan-kuo (Ceylon), whose "people," he says (p. 214), "are abundantly supplied with all the necessaries of life. They go about naked, except that they wear a green handkerchief round their loins, fastened with a waist-band. Their bodies are clean-shaven, and only the hair of their heads is left.... They take no meal without butter and milk, if they have none and wish to eat, they do so unobserved and in private. The betel-nut is never out of their mouths. They have no wheat, but have rice, sesamum, and peas. The cocoa-nut, which they have in abundance, supplies them with oil, wine, sugar, and food." Ma-Huan arrived at Ceylon at Pieh-lo-li, on the 6th of the 11th moon (seventh year, Suean Teh, end of 1432). Cf. Sylvain Levi, Ceylan et la Chine, J. As., Mai-juin, 1900, p. 411 seqq.

Odoric and the Adjaib do not mention cinnamon among the products of Ceylon; this omission was one of the arguments of Dr. Schumann (Ergaenz. No. 73 zu Petermann's Mitt., 1883, p. 46) against the authenticity of the Adjaib. These arguments have been refuted in the Livre des Merveilles de l'Inde, p. 265 seqq.

Nicolo Conti, speaking of the "very noble island called Zeilan," says (p. 7): "Here also cinnamon grows in great abundance. It is a tree which very much resembles our thick willows, excepting that the branches do not grow upwards, but are spread out horizontally: the leaves are very like those of the laurel, but are somewhat larger. The bark of the branches is the thinnest and best, that of the trunk of the tree is thicker and inferior in flavour. The fruit resembles the berries of the laurel; an odoriferous oil is extracted from it adapted for ointments, which are much used by the Indians. When the bark is stripped off, the wood is used for fuel."—H.C.]

NOTE 5.—There seems to have been always afloat among Indian travellers, at least from the time of Cosmas (6th century), some wonderful story about the ruby or rubies of the king of Ceylon. With Cosmas, and with the Chinese Hiuen Tsang, in the following century, this precious object is fixed on the top of a pagoda, "a hyacinth, they say, of great size and brilliant ruddy colour, as big as a great pine-cone; and when 'tis seen from a distance flashing, especially if the sun's rays strike upon it, 'tis a glorious and incomparable spectacle." Our author's contemporary, Hayton, had heard of the great ruby: "The king of that Island of Celan hath the largest and finest ruby in existence. When his coronation takes place this ruby is placed in his hand, and he goes round the city on horseback holding it in his hand, and thenceforth all recognise and obey him as their king." Odoric too speaks of the great ruby and the Kaan's endeavours to get it, though by some error the circumstance is referred to Nicoveran instead of Ceylon. Ibn Batuta saw in the possession of Arya Chakravarti, a Tamul chief ruling at Patlam, a ruby bowl as big as the palm of one's hand. Friar Jordanus speaks of two great rubies belonging to the king of SYLEN, each so large that when grasped in the hand it projected a finger's breadth at either side. The fame, at least, of these survived to the 16th century, for Andrea Corsali (1515) says: "They tell that the king of this island possesses two rubies of colour so brilliant and vivid that they look like a flame of fire."

Sir E. Tennent, on this subject, quotes from a Chinese work a statement that early in the 14th century the Emperor sent an officer to Ceylon to purchase a carbuncle of unusual lustre. This was fitted as a ball to the Emperor's cap; it was upwards of an ounce in weight and cost 100,000 strings of cash. Every time a grand levee was held at night the red lustre filled the palace, and hence it was designated "The Red Palace-Illuminator." (I.B. IV. 174-175; Cathay, p. clxxvii.; Hayton, ch. vi.; Jord. p. 30; Ramus. I. 180; Ceylon, I. 568).

["This mountain [Adam's Peak] abounds with rubies of all kinds and other precious stones. These gems are being continually washed out of the ground by heavy rains, and are sought for and found in the sand carried down the hill by the torrents. It is currently reported among the people, that these precious stones are the congealed tears of Buddha." (Ma-Huan, transl. by Phillips, p. 213.)

In the Chinese work Cho keng lu, containing notes on different matters referring to the time of the Mongol Dynasty, in ch. vii. entitled Hwui hwui shi t'ou ("Precious Stones of the Mohammedans") among the four kinds of red stones is mentioned the si-la-ni of a dark red colour; si-la-ni, as Dr. Bretschneider observes (Med. Res. I. p. 174), means probably "from Ceylon." The name for ruby in China is now-a-days hung pao shi, "red precious stone." (Ibid. p. 173.)—H.C.]

[1] The old Tamul alphabet has no sibilant.



CHAPTER XV.

THE SAME CONTINUED. THE HISTORY OF SAGAMONI BORCAN AND THE BEGINNING OF IDOLATRY.

Furthermore you must know that in the Island of Seilan there is an exceeding high mountain; it rises right up so steep and precipitous that no one could ascend it, were it not that they have taken and fixed to it several great and massive iron chains, so disposed that by help of these men are able to mount to the top. And I tell you they say that on this mountain is the sepulchre of Adam our first parent; at least that is what the Saracens say. But the Idolaters say that it is the sepulchre of SAGAMONI BORCAN, before whose time there were no idols. They hold him to have been the best of men, a great saint in fact, according to their fashion, and the first in whose name idols were made.[NOTE 1]

He was the son, as their story goes, of a great and wealthy king. And he was of such an holy temper that he would never listen to any worldly talk, nor would he consent to be king. And when the father saw that his son would not be king, nor yet take any part in affairs, he took it sorely to heart. And first he tried to tempt him with great promises, offering to crown him king, and to surrender all authority into his hands. The son, however, would none of his offers; so the father was in great trouble, and all the more that he had no other son but him, to whom he might bequeath the kingdom at his own death. So, after taking thought on the matter, the King caused a great palace to be built, and placed his son therein, and caused him to be waited on there by a number of maidens, the most beautiful that could anywhere be found. And he ordered them to divert themselves with the prince, night and day, and to sing and dance before him, so as to draw his heart towards worldly enjoyments. But 'twas all of no avail, for none of those maidens could ever tempt the king's son to any wantonness, and he only abode the firmer in his chastity, leading a most holy life, after their manner thereof. And I assure you he was so staid a youth that he had never gone out of the palace, and thus he had never seen a dead man, nor any one who was not hale and sound; for the father never allowed any man that was aged or infirm to come into his presence. It came to pass however one day that the young gentleman took a ride, and by the roadside he beheld a dead man. The sight dismayed him greatly, as he never had seen such a sight before. Incontinently he demanded of those who were with him what thing that was? and then they told him it was a dead man. "How, then," quoth the king's son, "do all men die?" "Yea, forsooth," said they. Whereupon the young gentleman said never a word, but rode on right pensively. And after he had ridden a good way he fell in with a very aged man who could no longer walk, and had not a tooth in his head, having lost all because of his great age. And when the king's son beheld this old man he asked what that might mean, and wherefore the man could not walk? Those who were with him replied that it was through old age the man could walk no longer, and had lost all his teeth. And so when the king's son had thus learned about the dead man and about the aged man, he turned back to his palace and said to himself that he would abide no longer in this evil world, but would go in search of Him Who dieth not, and Who had created him.[NOTE 2]